Brother Cadfael 21: A Rare Benedictine

brought here for safety in the night. He was seated on a bench by the empty hearth, one hand clutching firmly at the neck of a coarse canvas sack.
    "He has not let go of it all night," said the porter, "nor let me leave sitting t'other side of it as guard."
    Warin was willing enough, however, even relieved, to hand over his responsibility to the law, with a monk of the house for witness, seeing abbot and prior were not yet up to take precedence. He undid the neck of the sack proudly, and displayed the coins within.
    "You did say, brother, there might be a reward, if a man was so lucky as to find it. I had my doubts of that young clerk I never trust a too-honest face! And if it was he well, I reasoned he must hide what he stole quickly. And he had a pouch on him the like of the other, near enough, and nobody was going to wonder at seeing him wearing it, or having money in it, either, seeing he had a small round of his own. And if he came a thought late, well, he'd made a point he might make a slower job of it than he'd expected, being a novice at the collecting. So I kept my eye on him, and got my chance this night, when I saw him creep forth after dark. In his bed it was, sewn into a corner of the straw pallet. And here it is, and speak for me with the lord abbot. Trade's none so good, and a poor pedlar must live..."
    Gaping down at him long and wonderingly, the sergeant questioned at last: "And did you never for a moment consider slipping the whole into your own pack, and out through the gates with it in the morning?"
    Warin cast up a shy, disarming glance. "Well, sir, for a moment it may be I did. But I was never the lucky sort if I did the like, never a once but I was found out. Wisdom and experience turned me honest. Better, I hold, a small profit come by honestly than great gains gone down the wind, and me in prison for it just the same. So here's the abbey's gold again, every penny, and now I look to the lord abbot to treat a poor, decent man fair."